


Dear New Resident

by darkdropout



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Impossible Happenings, M/M, The Lake House AU, questionable changes to the space time continuum, time traveling objects
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 18:46:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5713144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkdropout/pseuds/darkdropout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Aiba moves into his new house, there is a Christmas card waiting for him in the mailbox. The Christmas card is dated two years in the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear New Resident

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gomushroom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gomushroom/gifts).



> Written for [gomushroom](http://gomushroom.livejournal.com/) in this year's [aibaexchange](http://aibaexchange.livejournal.com/)!!! This fic is loosely based on the film(s) _Il Mare/The Lake House_ (but don’t worry I changed the ending!)

~ ✉ ✉ ✉ ~

There’s a Christmas card in the mailbox.

Aiba juggles the moving box he’s holding from one arm to the other. It’s only one of many he’s been lugging in from the back of his car all afternoon, but this one is heavy and possibly fragile, so he does his best not to drop it on the stone walkway beneath his feet. Once he’s got a hand free, he rubs uselessly at the sweat dripping down his face, then wipes his hand on his jeans before he picks up the small green envelope.

“What’s this, Atom?” he asks the giant fluffy white dog barking excitedly around his ankles. “Who sent us mail already? Maybe Matsujun?”

Aiba can tell it’s a Christmas card even before he opens it because of the jolly-looking Santa that’s been hand-drawn on the front of it. The Santa is smiling, a little crookedly, and Aiba can’t help but smile back at it. He hadn’t been expecting any mail yet, not on move-in day, and especially not when he hasn’t even called the post office to add this house to the postal route. The mailbox should be empty. And besides, it’s only November.

“Aiba-chan!” calls Sho desperately. Sho is sweating too, the red hue to his face all the more noticeable in contrast to his usual grey tracksuit as he heaves one of Aiba’s suitcases up the front steps. “Can you get the door?”

Atom barks again.

“Sorry, Sho-chan!” Aiba yells back.

He stuffs the card into his back pocket and hurries up the steps to help Sho.

~ ✉ ~

Aiba has forgotten about the card completely by the time he’s kicking off his slippers and falling face first into his still unmade mattress. With the help of Sho’s generous hard labor, all the boxes and bags and suitcases have been moved in one day. Now all that’s left is the unpacking – but that’s what tomorrow is for. All Aiba really needs tonight is pair of clean sheets.

He’s willing himself to get up and dig around for some when Atom jumps up on the bed beside him, his wagging tail smacking Aiba in the face over and over in excitement.

“Ah, Atom,” Aiba says sleepily, unbothered by the sudden onslaught. 

Atom’s tail continues to thump across Aiba’s face as he grabs a hold of the back of Aiba’s pants and starts to tug.

“What are you doing?!” Aiba asks him in surprise. “Hey! Don’t rip my jeans! I haven’t even washed them yet!”

He tries to gently nudge the dog away, but Atom has a determined grip on something. It’s only when he finally lifts his head, small green envelope in his mouth and tail wiggling triumphantly, that Aiba understands.

“Oh, I forgot!” he says. 

He sits up, patting Atom’s head in thanks as he takes the now slobbery piece of mail from the dog’s mouth. There is the Santa, soggy but still smiling cheerfully up from the envelope, even as Aiba carefully rips it open around him.

Inside the envelope is a white slip of paper with another drawing on it. This one is a reindeer with gigantic antlers that take up almost the entire page. At first glance, it looks like nothing more than a quick doodle, done by the same hand as the one on the front of the envelope. But as Aiba looks closer, he realizes that the reindeer’s antlers are surprisingly intricate – full of shapes and shadows, delicate strokes both dark and light, twisted together to make the larger image.

Aiba isn’t sure how long he stares at it, eyes lingering over each smooth line. There’s something soothing about the complexity of it – how every little part fits together so perfectly, makes sense of something bigger, something so much more than it seems. 

Finally, he turns the paper over. He’s hoping for another drawing, but instead he finds a letter written in tiny, uneven script.

_Dear New Resident_

_Merry Christmas and Happy New Year~!!_

_Welcome to the house!!!_

_I hope you enjoy it as much as I have_

_Sorry to ask for a favor all of the sudden, but I’m waiting for an important check to come in the mail…_

_So if it comes, will you please forward it to the following address??_

_Thank you!!_

_Sincerely_  
Former Resident  
Ohno Satoshi 

_PS:_

_I hope it’s okay that I left the birdhouse in the back garden…_

_It was here when I moved in and there’s a family of birds that comes back every spring to live there…_

_So I didn’t feel right taking away their home_

“Birdhouse?” Aiba wonders aloud. He turns to Atom, who having completed his mission, is flopped contentedly on his back in very center of the bed. “Did you see a birdhouse?”

Atom has no answer for him, so Aiba swings his legs over the side of the bed to stand. He walks over to the sliding doors that lead from the bedroom out into the backyard. There’s a lake behind the house – it’s one of the reasons that Aiba bought the house so quickly, before construction was even complete. At this time of day, the setting sun is reflecting its last rays across the still surface of the water, bathing everything in a vibrant orange in a way that makes Aiba’s heart catch in his throat. 

He slides open the door and glances around. There is not a birdhouse in sight.

“Hm,” Aiba muses to himself. “Maybe he changed his mind.”

He steps back inside and slides the door closed behind him with a shiver, shutting out the chilly night air. It may only be November, but it’s cold enough that it might as well be winter already. He returns to the letter and looks it over again curiously. The forwarding address is familiar – somewhere in East Tokyo – but the name of the sender is one he’s never heard before.

It’s when he’s leaned in to study the signature more closely that something jumps out at him:

 _Former Resident_?

This house is a new house. Aiba is the first, and only, resident to live in it. He knows this for certain because it’s impossible to forget what a big deal it was to purchase his first real home. But since work was going so well, and he had the money, he had thought – why not? He’d stumbled upon this extravagant villa right on the lake while it was still being built and had bought it the moment he saw it, even while it was still mostly a pile of rubble sitting on the edge of the water. Then he’d had to wait, with varying degrees of patience, for another seven months before it was ready for him to move in – until today.

Aiba is the only one who has ever lived here. So how can there be a letter in his mailbox from someone named Ohno Satoshi claiming he is the former resident?

That’s when Aiba finally sees it – written at the top of the letter, scrawled so tiny that it’s almost indecipherable.

A date.

_13 November 2012_

Aiba frowns in growing puzzlement. 

His phone is on the bedside table and he taps the screen to wake it up. The date and time glow back at him confidently.

_13 November 2010_

Ohno Satoshi’s Christmas card is dated two years in the future.

~ ✉ ~

When Aiba gets to the office the next morning, Nino is already at his desk, typing away furiously at his keyboard in a way that can only mean he’s playing games instead of doing work.

“Yo! How’s the new mansion, hot shot?” he greets jovially, eyes never moving away from his screen.

Aiba slings his bag over the back of his chair, reaching out automatically to double click the mouse. His computer pops to life. Instantly, the room fills with a cascade of pinging alerts and messages, his inbox overflowing into every bit of available screen space.

“Something strange happened,” he says to Nino as he settles himself into his seat, clicking absentmindedly at a few of his open tabs.

Nino gives an incredulous snort. “You’re strange so I’m not surprised.”

Usually Aiba would protest against such a comment, but this morning he barely registers it, too distracted by thoughts of the envelope with the Santa on it sitting at home on his bedside table. 

“There was a letter in the mailbox already,” he says. “When I got there.”

“From Jun-kun?” Nino guesses over a victorious trill from his own computer that is definitely not work-related. “That guy never misses an occasion to send a card. It’s those good manners of his.”

“Not Matsujun,” says Aiba with a shake of his head. “It was a Christmas card from the former resident.”

Nino jabs hard at some button on his keyboard and it must pause his game because he finally looks up from the screen. 

“Aibashi,” he says, affectionately condescending. “It’s a new house. You’re the _only_ resident.”

Aiba slowly nods his head, more perplexed than ever. “That’s what I thought.”

“See. Totally strange,” Nino says again and un-pauses his game.

~ ✉ ~

_17 November 2010_

_Dear Ohno-san –_

_Merry almost Christmas!!_

_I thought I should write to you and let you know that you sent your letter to the wrong address! I am the first and only resident of this house. I guess it must be a mistake?!_

_I know you are waiting for your check, so you might want to confirm the address again!_

_Current Resident  
Aiba Masaki _

~ ✉ ~

Aiba has always been a curious person, a person full of questions – questions that hum through his body, that keep him constant company both day and night. Sometimes there are so many questions shuffling through him that he can’t think straight. People often call him flighty, call him dumb, and Aiba never bothers to correct them – too caught up in his own head and searching, always searching, for answers to every question he’s ever had.

For Aiba, creating MasakiDotCom had been a natural extension of this curiosity. Though it started out small, just a way to get quick answers to the more colorfully complicated of his personal queries, it had somehow become the most innovative search engine in recent World Wide Web history, winning academic accolades before trickling down to be employed by the masses. In less than a year, it had risen to the number one most utilized search engine in Japan. Next spring, it will be rolled out through the rest of East Asia.

Aiba had never been someone with great aspirations. He hadn’t expected to be a success. He’d just been a guy that had been full of questions, searching for answers, and somehow along the way stumbled on a career.

~ ✉ ~

It’s a bit of a hike to get to work now, almost an hour to and from Tokyo from the new house.

Aiba doesn’t really mind, but Atom doesn’t like it much. Aiba is starting to think he should bring him into the office so he doesn’t get so lonely when Aiba is away all day. Nino would be happy with that arrangement – Nino has always liked dogs.

Aiba can already hear Atom scratching excitedly at the front door when he stops to check the mailbox. He’d called the post office this morning and set everything up for an official delivery, so when he looks inside the clanking metal door this time he’s not surprised to find it full. 

There are some magazines, a few bills, an advertisement labeled “To Current Resident” – and at the very bottom of it all is a small green envelope.

Aiba drops the rest of the mail at his feet.

_22 November 2012_

_Aiba-san –_

_I don’t know how my letter got to you, but I know this is the right address_

_And this is the house:_

Below these words is a another drawing, this one an exact replica of the house that Aiba is standing in front of – the house that Aiba is the first and only resident of. Yet there is no mistaking it when each tiny detail is so carefully sketched in, so perfectly exact that Aiba has to double check them to the reality before him just to be sure he’s not imagining it. Atom is still scratching at the door and Aiba calls out for him to wait a little longer as he takes a moment to confirm each and every mark. 

When he’s finally satisfied himself with the comparison, he reads on:

_PS: Eh?? Are you really from 2010??_

_O.S._

~ ✉ ~

Aiba throws a house warming party. It’s a small gathering, just Nino and Jun and Sho. Jun insists on cooking and shows up early to take over the expansive kitchen that he’s been coveting since Aiba showed him the floor plan for it. Nino arrives a little later with a case of beer and its carefully preserved receipt, both of which he hands over to Aiba the moment he enters. Sho is right behind him, balancing a large box in his hands and this time it’s not one from Aiba’s move-in load.

“I got you a birdhouse,” he explains eagerly before he’s even all the way through the door. “There are supposed to be some rare birds out here and I thought it might be interesting!” 

“Thanks!” says Aiba sincerely.

“If you like it, then it’s from me too,” Nino calls from somewhere in the living room. 

“It’s not!” Sho shouts after him. He turns back to Aiba. “It’s not,” he insists.

Aiba pats Sho’s shoulder reassuringly as he leads him into the house.

Later, when everyone has left and Aiba is alone, he finds himself once again standing on the inside of his sliding glass doors, looking out at the back garden. 

After dinner, Sho had helped Aiba set up the birdhouse. At the end of much debate, and some strongly worded advisement from Jun, they had placed in the middle of the yard where Aiba would have a clear view of it from the comfort of his bed. But it’s only now, as Aiba admires the view, that he realizes it.

There _is_ a birdhouse in the back garden.

Just like Ohno Satoshi said there was.

~ ✉ ~

Aiba takes a picture of today’s newspaper.

 _25 November 2010_

He prints it out and puts it in an envelope, carefully labeled with Ohno Satoshi’s forwarding address. 

He places the envelope in the mailbox on his way to work.

~ ✉ ~

Two days later, Aiba’s gets a letter decorated with a pencil-draw winter wonderland.

_28 November 2012_

_Ah well then!!_

_It’s going to snow a lot on 1 December 2010_

_Make sure you keep your tummy warm and don’t catch a cold!!_

_O.S._

~ ✉ ~

“He’s messing with you,” says Nino, leaning too far into Aiba’s space though they haven’t even ordered anything to drink yet.

The izakaya is mostly empty tonight, which means the grandma who runs it will be extra attentive, and Nino is in high spirits with the anticipation of extra refills and free snacks.

“Maybe,” says Aiba, but he doesn’t really think it’s true. It would sound too silly to say out loud, but from his letters, from his drawings, Aiba doesn’t think that Ohno Satoshi seems like the type to be making fun of him.

“Why don’t you just look him up in your fancy search engine?” Nino asks.

Aiba hesitates for only a moment before he shakes his head. “No.”

Nino blinks at him. “So you invented a search engine, _forced me_ to work at the company you use to run your search engine, and – let me get this straight – you won’t even _use it_ to look up some guy that’s bugging you?”

Aiba shakes his head again, this time a little more forcefully. Nino has a right to be incredulous – Aiba has spent his life dedicated to the pursuit of the answer to every question he’s ever had. But there’s something about Ohno Satoshi’s letters – the simple writing and complex drawings – that makes Aiba stop every time he opens up MasakiDotCom to type in Ohno’s name.

“I feel like that’s cheating,” Aiba explains, not expecting Nino to understand. 

If Nino does, he shows no indication of it. “You think he’s really two years in the future? Writing to _you_?” 

Aiba can only shrug. “He says that he is. Stranger things have happened!”

Nino rolls his eyes. “No. They haven’t.”

“Magic is all around us?” Aiba tries, wiggling his eyebrows in a way he hopes will be convincing.

Nino hides his laugh in the crook of his elbow. “All right, all right, enough. I get it. If you believe it, I believe that you believe it.”

Aiba grins, knowing that’s as much of a vote of confidence as he’s ever going to get – at least for now.

“Weirdo,” Nino sighs and calls the grandma over to order a drink.

~ ✉ ~

Aiba should be working. He has a lot to do. His laptop is open, screen glowing dimly in the dark of the room, but it’s been long forgotten. Instead he’s laid out all of Ohno Satoshi’s letters on the bed in front of him. Aiba can't stop looking over them, again and again, wondering about the hand that’s drawn them, about the person that says he’s writing to Aiba from 2012.

He has so many questions and so far no answers. But for the first time in his life, that’s okay. Because even if it’s impossible, Aiba can’t help but believe – in Ohno Satoshi and his drawings that always make Aiba smile, that always make his heart beat a little faster, no matter how many times he sees them. 

Aiba is broken from his wonderings when Atom barks. When he looks up, the dog is pawing and whining in front of the sliding doors. 

“What’s up, Atom? Time to go – ?” he starts to ask, then stops. 

Outside, it’s snowing.

For a moment, Aiba is complete frozen, watching as the snowflakes fall – slowly at first, but then faster and faster in thick, heavy flakes that stick firmly to the ground. They pile on top of each other until there is nothing but white.

Then on the bed beside him, Aiba’s phone beeps with an incoming alert. He scrambles to check it.

_SEVERE WEATHER ALERT_

_HEAVY SNOWFALL EXPECTED FOR 1 DECEMBER 2010_

_PLEASE TAKE NECESSARY PRECAUTIONS_

~ ✉ ~

_3 December 2010_

_It did snow, just like you said!!_

_I caught a cold even though you warned me! Matsujun scolded me about it but he also gave me lots of herbal tea so I recovered okay!_

_How did you know?_

_A.M._

~ ✉ ~

_6 December 2012_

_I told you it would!!!_

_You’re really in 2010 then…_

_But I think I believed you anyway…_

_Isn’t it kind of strange?_

_O.S._

_PS: I have a friend named Matsujun too_

~ ✉ ~

“Ohno Satoshi?” Jun says, unable to keep the skeptical tinge from his words. “Never heard of him.”

“He’s an artist,” Aiba offers helpfully. “And he lives in New York right now. But he’ll live here soon and you’ll work with him.”

“I will?” Jun says, more skeptical than ever. “I don’t know anything about art.”

Aiba grins. “That’s what he said too.”

“You really expect me to believe this?” asks Jun, and if the question sounds a little desperate, Aiba easily ignores it.

“Nino believed it.”

“Nino’s as crazy as you are,” Jun says dismissively. “Although this explains why he’s been muttering about timelines all week.”

Aiba gives a sympathetic nod. “He’s worried about the timelines.”

“Is this because you’re too lonely out there at the lake?” Jun asks finally, trying not to sound as concerned as he obviously is. “I knew it was too far away – ”

“Matsujun,” Aiba cuts him off. He puts a comforting hand on Jun’s arm. “I’m not lonely. I’m just getting letters from someone who says he’s living two years in the future.”

Jun doesn’t reply, staring Aiba down as if he hopes that somehow, if he glares at him long enough, he can make him unsay what he’s just said. 

Aiba smiles and waits. It takes a few minutes, but eventually Jun sighs, shaking his head.

“Right,” he says and he looks like he has a headache coming on. “Of course you are.”

~ ✉ ~

_10 December 2010_

_Nino says this sounds like the plot of a manga he once read where there was a wrinkle in time._

_Do you have a Nino too?_

_A.M._

~ ✉ ~

The sketch is labeled _a wrinkle in time_ and Aiba spends twenty minutes following the tangle of interwoven pieces that come together to make up that one wobbling wave of time and space. Ohno has used colored pencils on this one, and yet somehow each color seems to dissolve seamlessly into the next without giving away a beginning or an end.

_12 December 2012_

_What’s a Nino??_

_I don’t have one, but maybe I should get one_

_How do you think our letters are getting to each other?!_

_O.S._

~ ✉ ~

The mailbox was included in the construction of the house, added by the architect to match with the rest of the design aesthetic. It’s modern in shape, sleek and sophisticated, and deep in a way that makes is perfect for losing unwanted bills. The door to it swings open and close on dramatic hinges.

Aiba has just swung the door shut again when he suddenly thinks of something to add to the letter he’s already placed inside. There’s only one problem. When he opens the door again, just a moment later, the mailbox is empty.

Aiba does a thorough investigation. He checks the entire mailbox, the back and the sides, the inside of the door, and anywhere his letter may have slipped or gotten caught. He checks the ground and glances down the path that leads back to the house for any sign of it. He even checks his own pockets, in case it’s somehow found its way back in there without him noticing. But his search brings up no results.

The letter is gone.

~ ✉ ~

_13 December 2010_

_It’s the mailbox!!!_

_The mailbox is making our letters go back and forth in time!!!!_

_A.M._

~ ✉ ~

_14 December 2012_

_OH!!_

_I’ve always liked this mailbox~~_

_O.S._

Aiba grins to himself as he reads this. He looks at the clay figurine in his hand, the one that he had found sitting on top of Ohno’s letter. It’s small, hand-made and strangely lopsided. But it has a face and a smile and Aiba is instantly taken with it.

He glances back to the letter. 

_PS: Is this a Nino?_

~ ✉ ~

_15 December 2010_

_Not a Nino…but you’re really good at that!! I’ll make sure Nino gets it._

_Can you do another?_

_A.M._

~ ✉ ~

_15 December 2012_

 _Sure_

Aiba reads from the next letter, only a few hours later. It’s sitting underneath a clay fish covered in scales, every one a different shape and texture.

_I really like fishing~_

_O.S._

~ ✉ ~

“This looks nothing like me,” Nino says, although he seems kind of pleased anyway.

“It’s just his imagination! It’s what he thinks a Nino looks like,” Aiba explains, placing the figurine proudly into Nino’s reaching hand.

“Hmm,” says Nino as he examines it. “You still haven’t looked him up?”

“Nope!” Aiba assures him.

“You’re writing to him every day now, right? So don’t you think he probably looked you up already?”

“I don’t think he would,” Aiba says with what he realizes is unfounded confidence as he reaches out to pat Nino on the head, much too roughly.

“Okay, whatever,” Nino huffs. 

He bats Aiba’s hand away, but he’s grinning as he puts the figurine on display at the edge of his desk.

~ ✉ ~

_17 December 2010_

_My birthday is soon. On Christmas Eve!!!!_

_What do you look like?_

_A.M._

~ ✉ ~

He’s cute. Round-faced, with soft eyes and a lazy, sweet smile. Aiba has never really had a type – but he thinks if he did, this might be it.

He spends the rest of the afternoon on his best attempt at a portrait of himself and Atom. It comes out a little scarier than he intended, but he sends it anyway.

~ ✉ ~

The clay dog looks more like Atom than Aiba’s drawing, which is kind of impressive since that’s all Ohno’s had to work off of. Aiba’s wonders if Ohno would think it was strange that his heart flutters in his chest as he reads the accompanying text:

_19 December 2012_

_Cute!!!_

_I’d like to meet you someday_

_Atom too ♥_

_O.S._

~ ✉ ~

“Good luck, ranchu-chan!” Aiba says as he places the clear plastic bag gently inside the mailbox, the small fish _glub-glub-glubbing_ at him from his little bubble of water inside – although Aiba doesn’t actually know if ranchus _glub-glub-glub_ and by the time he thinks to check and confirm this assumption the door to the mailbox has already closed firmly shut, along with the note he’s attached to it.

_21 December 2010_

_I got you a ranchu!! It sounds like a Pokémon name, huh?? You can’t fish him, but I thought you could be friends~_

_What were you doing in 2010?_

_A.M._

~ ✉ ~

_22 December 2012_

_Thanks for the ranchu!!!_

_HE’S SO CUUUUUTTTEEEEE!!!!_

_I named him Atom II_

_In 2010..._

_I had an art show in Tokyo_

_On Christmas Eve_

_I wasn’t there but…_

_Maybe you can go and see it_

_O.S._

~ ✉ ~

The gallery is on the far side of the city in an upscale neighborhood that Aiba has never dared step foot in before now. The doors are just closing when he arrives, breathing heavily and rubbing the stitch that’s started in his side after his dash from the station to get here in time.

“Sorry,” says the attendant, already turning the gallery’s elegant sign from open to closed.

“Please, I only need a minute,” Aiba pants, giving her his best beseeching look.

The attendant looks a little startled by it, but somehow it seems to do the trick anyway.

“Go ahead then,” she says. “But only five minutes or I’ll be in big trouble.”

The exhibit is far too large to view in only five minutes, but Aiba tries to take it all in, every bit of it. There are drawings and paintings of every size, every medium, and every color. There’s an entire wall full of small clay sculptures like the ones Ohno has been sending him. Aiba stops to admire one that actually looks a lot like Nino, although it’s probably a coincidence since it’s a shibu inu. 

In the corner of the room, there is a small painting of a lake.

“Not our lake,” Aiba hums to himself as he stops to admire it, surprised only after he realizes what he’s said. He’s not sure when he’s started to think of it as _their_ lake, as _their_ house – but just thinking it, just saying it, makes him warm down to his toes.

Standing in this room, surrounded with Ohno’s work, Aiba wonders how he can be falling in love with someone he’s never met. 

On the way out, Aiba stops to sign the guestbook – but for the first time in all of their exchanges he’s not sure what to say.

_Ohno Satoshi –_

_I think I might be in love with you._

_Aiba Masaki_

~ ✉ ~

_25 December 2010_

_It was amazing!!! You’re amazing!!!_

_I signed the guestbook… Maybe you can see it._

_A.M._

~ ✉ ~

_26 December 2012_

_I found the guestbook in my storage unit_

_Your entry was there!!_

_And…_

_Aiba-chan, I feel the same way ♥_

_PS: Happy birthday!!!_

_\- Satoshi_

~ ✉ ~

“But you know when he'll move back. You know where he'll be. You even know where he is now if you really wanted to find him,” Sho protests.

“THE TIMELINE!” Nino shouts for the third time since Sho started talking. “You can’t mess with the timeline!” 

“Isn’t the timeline already messed up anyway? Aren’t they changing it just by writing the letters in the first place?” asks Sho in genuine confusion and it’s clear that he is doing his best to maintain logic even as the world of common sense seems to be slipping through his fingers. 

“If you mess with the timeline, it might create another timeline – it might even make a timeline disappear completely and leave us all stuck in another one!” Nino explains, long since out of patience for those on the other side of disbelief. Aiba’s not sure when Nino crossed over from the “you’re a weirdo” side of the issue, but he’s thankful for the sudden burst of aggressive support – he needs all the support he can get now that he’s in love with someone who lives two years in the future. 

“What if I’m not as handsome in the other timeline?” Nino says to Sho accusingly. “ _You_ would have to live with that.”

Aiba gives a solemn nod of agreement. “Also it feels like cheating to try to find him!” he adds in for good measure.

If Sho thinks they’ve lost their minds, he’s too polite to say it out loud – Sho is a good friend like that. 

“Then can’t he find you?” he says instead. “Isn’t he trying to find you? In the year 2012?”

Aiba frowns a little as he thinks this over. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Sho admits and he looks a little sick to his stomach, but swallows it down diplomatically as he continues, “Can you start again from the beginning?”

“There, there, Sho-chan,” says Nino, patting Sho on the back the same way Aiba pats Atom when he’s being a good boy. “It’s okay to admit that you’re just not as smart as us.”

~ ✉ ~

_28 December 2010_

_When did you meet Matsujun?_

_\- Masaki_

~ ✉ ~

_29 December 2012_

_I think it was in the winter??_

_It was cold out… he had a jacket on_

_I asked him about you today but he wouldn’t tell me anything…_

_Then I asked him a second time and he said never to bring it up again…_

_Then he went home with a headache_

_It was really cute ♥_

_\- Satoshi_

Below is a sketch of a figure wearing a winter coat that Aiba doesn’t recognize and holding its head in agony. The ferocious scowl on its face is unmistakable.

Aiba hadn't doubted it, but it's still comforting to know that the Matsujun of 2012 is exactly the same.

~ ✉ ~

Two days later, Jun shows up to the karaoke bar wearing the jacket Ohno had sketched him in and Aiba jumps out of the booth so fast he trips over Nino’s foot and almost lands on his face.

“It was a Christmas present,” Jun explains uncomfortably as he hauls Aiba upright. “So stop staring at me with that hopeful look on your face. It’s creeping me out.”

Jun doesn’t meet Ohno that day.

~ ✉ ~

_1 January 2011_

_Happy New Year, Oh-chan!!! Now it’s 2011!_

_Matsujun still hasn’t met you yet._

_\- Masaki_

~ ✉ ~

_2 January 2013_

_Happy New Year from 2013, Aiba-chan!!!_

_Oh I forgot to say that I didn’t meet him in Japan…_

_I met him in New York!!_

_\- Satoshi_

~ ✉ ~

“I’ve been invited to New York,” Jun says, sounding excited but also completely freaked out. “There’s a job opening in a gallery there and they want me. It’s temporary. I should be back in a year or so.”

“I’ll miss you,” says Aiba, and though he can feel that constant hum through his body again, picking up strength as all his questions build to an overwhelming crescendo at Jun’s words, he can also feel tears pressing at the back of his eyes. 

Jun clears his throat before he speaks again and he looks as if he’s forcing the words to leave his mouth. “If I meet him, should I say something?”

Aiba shakes his head as he grabs Jun’s hand. “No. No matter what, you can't tell him anything. Even when he asks you.”

Jun looks down at Aiba’s hand, holding on to his. 

“Should I tell you?” he asks, a little uncertainly – and it sounds like, it seems like, like maybe he’s starting to believe. 

“No,” says Aiba and smiles. “Don’t tell me either. Even if I ask you. Promise?”

Jun lets out a weary sigh and he looks a bit teary now too, but he squeezes Aiba’s hand. 

“Promise.”

~ ✉ ~

_7 January 2011_

_Matsujun is coming to you now!! I’ll miss him a lot so be sure to take good care of him!!_

_Maybe we should meet._

_\- Masaki_

~ ✉ ~

_8 January 2013_

_Where?_

~ ✉ ~

_9 January 2011_

_Do you know Il Mare Café? At the Sky Tree._

_15 January 2013 at 17:00_

~ ✉ ~

_9 January 2013_

_Okay ♥_

 

“Okay, Atom,” Aiba says, Ohno’s letter still clutched tightly in one hand as he marks his calendar for two years in the future. “Don't forget.”

~ ✉ ~

On January 15th, Aiba goes to the appointed meeting spot. Ohno won’t be here today, not in 2010, but somewhere out there in 2012, they will be together.

The idea of it is thrilling and, if Aiba is honest with himself, a little overwhelming. He hasn’t slept at all, up late into the night as Atom snored contentedly beside him. It will be two years for Aiba, two years of waiting, but for Ohno it’s only a few days – it’s today. Aiba is more full of questions than he’s ever been in his entire life, so many they make his head spin, they make his hands shake. 

He shoves his shaking hands into his coat pockets as he heads for the Sky Tree, then takes a sharp turn to enter the shop across the street from it. The _Il Mare Café_ is small, and a little expensive, but it has the best hot chocolate in all of Tokyo and Aiba had thought it might be – he grins to himself as the thinks it – _romantic_.

He orders a hot chocolate and takes a seat by the window. From here he can see the Sky Tree perfectly. It’s still in mid-construction and as Aiba looks up at it he wonders if it’s been finished in 2012. He wonders if he and Ohno are looking up at it now, together.

He stays there in the café, sipping his hot chocolate and wondering, for the better part of an hour before he finally loses patience. If he’s met Ohno in 2012, there may not be a letter waiting for him at home – Ohno won’t need to write to him anymore if there is an Aiba standing beside him. But even so, Aiba wants to check the mailbox, just in case.

~ ✉ ~

_15 January 2013_

_You didn’t come…_

_I waited but you weren’t there_

_Did you change your mind?_

_\- Satoshi_

The words are written on a napkin imprinted with the logo of the _Il Mare Café_ and Aiba’s heart sinks as he reads them. On the back, Ohno has drawn a beautiful, melancholy lake. Aiba thinks back to the painting at the gallery, of that moment when he had realized that he was in love.

This time, here on the back of the napkin, it _is_ their lake that Ohno has draw for him. Aiba doesn’t have to compare it to the real one to know.

~ ✉ ~

Nino finds Aiba sitting on his bedroom floor, legs splayed out despondently in front of him as he stares out at the back garden. There are no birds at the birdhouse, not now in the middle of winter, but Aiba has been watching for them anyway, just in case.

“I didn’t show up,” he says as Nino sits down beside him.

Nino doesn’t say anything, remains unusually quiet except for the jingle of his car keys still swinging back and forth in his hand. When Aiba finally turns towards him, there is a strange look on his face.

“I found him,” Nino says finally.

Aiba blinks. “What?”

“I found him,” Nino repeats. “I looked him up weeks ago on your dumb search engine.” 

He pauses as if he’s not sure if he should continue. “And I can take you to him.”

“But he’s in New York – ” Aiba stutters. His heart is beating so hard in his chest, it feels as if it might beat right out of him. The hum of questions ricocheting around his body is so loud in his ears he can barely hear Nino’s answer.

“He’s not in New York. Not today at least. He’s been in Tokyo all week to meet with an important art buyer.”

Aiba shakes his head in disbelief, but he can already feel himself grinning from ear to ear. “He didn’t tell me that he would be here.”

“That’s because he wasn’t going to be,” Nino says smugly and he’s never looked more pleased with himself. “Until now.”

“What did you do, Nino?!” he shouts excitedly, pushing too hard at Nino’s shoulder.

Nino grins triumphantly. “I’ve been emailing with him. I told him I might be interested in buying some of his stuff. Most of his stuff. All of it, could have been implied. So his manager – you might know him, nice guy, kind of begrudging but we go way back so he did me a favor – flew this guy in to meet with me about all the art I’m buying.”

Aiba has grabbed hold of Nino’s sleeve by now, using this grip to shake him back and forth. “He said he didn’t know a Nino!” he says, accusingly, delightedly.

“Of course he said that,” says Nino, looking a little offended. “I told him my name was Kazu.”

“Nino! You messed with the timelines!” Aiba crows happily.

“Yeah well,” Nino agrees, finally managing to wiggle out from Aiba’s grip. “You said it felt like cheating if you looked him up, but you didn’t say I couldn’t. So do you want to meet him or not?”

“Yes!” says Aiba without hesitation. Maybe yesterday he would have said no – maybe yesterday Nino wouldn’t have even offered. But today, things are different. Today calls for desperate measures. “Yes!!”

“Good because I’m late for my appointment and his manager will never let me hear the end of it,” says Nino. 

He stands up and holds out a hand to help Aiba to his feet – something he soon lives to regret when Aiba pulls them both over in his excitement to scramble up. 

“How many legs do you have?!” Nino yells in annoyance as he tries to untangle himself from the mess of long limbs he’s trapped underneath.

“Sorry, Nino!” Aiba says cheerfully as Nino finally escapes.

“For the record, I take no responsibility for the world exploding when the two of you meet,” says Nino irritably as he brushes himself off. “Oh and one more thing – I told him I’d mail him a check for this dumb dog figurine I bought to get him over here, but I guess I forgot. Where’s your checkbook?”

~ ✉ ~

“This is the place,” Nino says, tapping at the driver’s side window to point out the hotel across the street.

“Okay,” says Aiba, taking a deep breath, hand already on the car door handle. “You park the car and I’ll go – ”

“Not this again!” Nino howls, grabbing the back of Aiba’s sweatshirt and tugging him back into the car. “You will stay in the car and we will park it together. I am not your taxi.”

“But Nino!” Aiba protests. “This is an emergency! I have to meet the love of my life!”

In the back seat, Atom barks in agreement.

Nino shakes his head as he makes a quick turn into the hotel parking garage before Aiba can try to escape again. “Next time you meet the love of your life, you’re taking the bus.”

~ ✉ ~

Nino insists on knocking, and before Aiba can disagree, raps out a bizarrely complicated rhythm on the door in front of them.

“It’s our secret knock,” he deadpans when Aiba looks at him questioningly. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Before Aiba can scold Nino for teasing him, there is the sound of footsteps from somewhere inside the room. Atom starts to bark again, winding his way around Aiba and Nino’s feet, tail _thump-thump-thumping_ with anticipation. Aiba’s heart is _thump-thump-thumping_ too.

The door swings open.

“Hiya, Oh-chan,” says Nino with a wave.

“Oh,” says Ohno Satoshi, looking sleep-mussed and owl-eyed. He smiles and it’s just like the self-portrait he sent Aiba all those weeks ago. “Hi Kazu.”

Atom barks again, lunging forward. Aiba only just manages to grab his collar before he bowls Ohno over.

“Sorry!” Aiba says sheepishly as Atom still manages to get close enough to slobber on Ohno’s slippered feet.

Ohno doesn’t answer. He’s looking at Aiba, staring at him, unblinkingly. His smile is still there, but it’s little uncertain now – like he’s not sure why he’s smiling anymore.

“This is Aiba-chan. He’s a big fan of yours,” says Nino. 

He smacks Aiba on the back and it’s only then that Aiba remembers to breath. He bows much too deeply for the present situation and beside him Nino gives a snort of laughter.

“Sorry to intrude,” Aiba says as he straightens, suddenly feeling very shy. 

Ohno is still staring at him with that unreadable look on his face. Aiba wonders if it would be presumptuous to kiss him right now even though they’ve only just been introduced.

“Have we met before?” Ohno asks him finally. “You seem so familiar.”

“Funny you should say that, Oh-chan,” says Nino, already pushing his way into Ohno’s hotel room, Atom leaping in behind him. 

Ohno lets them in, holding the door open for Aiba too, and this time when he smiles at Aiba he looks as if he knows exactly what he’s smiling about. Aiba can’t help but smile back.

Inside the room, Nino pulls out his bag and turns it upside-down over the coffee table. Aiba watches in alarm as every letter, every drawing, every figurine, that Ohno – Ohno in 2012 – has ever sent him comes tumbling out.

Ohno picks up the figurine of Atom, eyebrows rising in surprise. “Did I make this?”

“You did,” says Aiba quietly and Ohno turns to face him again. “In the year 2012.” 

Ohno stares back at him, silent and confused. Aiba isn’t sure what to do. He can feel something wet on his face and it takes a moment before he realizes that he’s crying. He doesn’t even know why. He looks down, hiding his face, and wonders why he had thought it was such a good idea to come here – to meet an Ohno that doesn’t recognize him, can’t recognize him, no matter how much Aiba had hoped he would. 

He shouldn’t be here. Not now, not yet. He reaches down to collect the letters and the figurines. He’ll take them home and put them away somewhere, look back on them someday, when his heart doesn’t hurt so much. 

He’s picking up the last letter when something wet hits the back of his hand. He hears a sniffle. He glances up, eyes widening in surprise. 

Ohno is crying too.

“I don’t know why we’re crying,” Ohno admits, still clutching the figurine even as tears stream down his face.

“Me either,” says Aiba with a wet laugh.

“You guys are so meant for each other,” Nino says from where he and Atom have flopped themselves presumptuously onto Ohno’s hotel room couch. “It’s kind of disgusting.”

~ ✉ ~

Aiba has always been a curious person, a person full of questions – questions that hum through his body, that keep him constant company both day and night. Sometimes there are so many questions shuffling through him that he can’t think straight.

Today the humming has stopped and something different has taken its place. Now he can feel the beating of his heart, the way it beats faster, beats stronger, when he’s next to Ohno. He still has questions, but finding all the answers to them doesn’t seem so important now.

In fact, there’s only one more answer he needs to know.

“So why didn’t you come to meet me?” Ohno asks him. 

They’re at the lake house now – _their_ lake house – sitting together at the sliding door, touching knee to foot, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like they’ve been doing it forever.

“I don’t know,” says Aiba honestly. “Maybe I forgot.”

“You didn’t forget,” Ohno says and he sounds so sure that it makes Aiba warm all the way through.

“I didn’t forget,” he agrees.

Ohno leans a little closer. “What do you think is happening now in 2012?”

“I don’t know,” says Aiba again with a laugh. “Should I write you a letter and find out? 

Ohno is silent for a long moment, thinking. 

“You can’t write me a letter because I’m not there anymore,” he says finally. “Because I’m here instead.” 

It doesn’t really make sense, but then none of this has made any sense from the start – not from the very first letter, the Christmas card with a jolly-looking Santa on the front of it that was dated two years in the future.

“Maybe we should get a new mailbox,” Aiba wonders. “So we don’t mess up the timelines again.”

“I like our mailbox,” Ohno says with a smile and he seems so unworried that Aiba isn’t worried either. 

In fact, Aiba can’t be worried at all – because Ohno is leaning closer still and Aiba meets him halfway, pressing their lips together.

~ ✉ ~

Aiba had never been someone with great aspirations. He hadn’t expected to be a success. He’d just been a guy that had been full of questions, searching for answers, and somehow along the way stumbled in to Ohno Satoshi.

~ ✉ ✉ ✉ ✉ ✉ ~

On Jan 15, 2013, they go to their appointed meeting spot. Holding hands with Ohno as they head for the Sky Tree, Aiba takes a sharp turn to enter the shop across the street. But Ohno doesn’t turn with him. He keeps walking straight ahead as their hands tug apart.

They both stop, turning to look at each other in confusion. Then Aiba smiles.

“At the Sky Tree!” he says.

Ohno blinks, still puzzled.

“It’s finished now,” explains Aiba, pointing up the towering structure above them. Then he turns to point at the shop across the street where the café – the original _Il Mare Café_ – still stands. “There are two now. One _by_ the Sky Tree and one _in_ the Sky Tree.” 

“So we went to different ones?” Ohno says, amused.

Aiba nods his head eagerly. “We went to different ones! That’s why I didn’t come to meet you.”

Ohno laughs and takes Aiba’s hand again. “Well then, I guess we’ll have to visit both!”

~ ✉ ✉ ✉ ~


End file.
